Here is the question I am trying to get at, but it's hard to word for a simple Yes/No poll:
If Corinthians' glossolalia was the same as the modern Charismatics', and Charismatics' glossolalia is psychological in nature, then what does that say about the Corinthians' own glossolalia?
First, we must consider whether the Charismatics have the same experience as the Corinthians, or whether the Corinthians were speaking in national languages.
In other words: Were the Corinthians speaking in foreign national languages, or were both the Charismatics and Corinthians speaking phonetics that are not national languages?
One Orthodox monk writes:
Why some people think they were the same experience:
A) Some propose that the Corinthians were speaking in angels' tongues and that people cannot understand them. In 1 Corinthians 13, we read: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass.” But this never says what exactly those tongues of angels are. It does not say whether the angels have a different phonetic pattern of speech, as in the Bible the angels' sentences are comprehensible, and secondly it does not say whether the Corinthians were speaking in angels' supposed tongues.
B) Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13-14 that when people speak in tongues "no one understandeth him". If the person was speaking in a national language, then it seems like at least someone, like a traveler from another country would understand him. One theologian said that Corinth had travelers from other countries and so someone should have been able to understand the language if it was a real language.
C) Paul warned that Corinthians should be careful to speak at most two at a time in tongues and to have a translator, because otherwise bystanders would think that they were being "maniacs". This resembles the impression that Charismatics speaking in tongues sometimes makes on critics.
But this does not prove whether the Corinthians were speaking national languages, because people talking at once in national languages could make the same impression.
D) Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 that a person speaking in tongues speaks to God because no one understands the person. However, in Acts the kinds of tongues discussed were languages directed by the spirit that foreigners understood and were meant for the foreigners to do so, so 1 Corinthians 14 must be talking about a different kind of method of speech, one that no one understands. Since the prayer is directed to God, it means that God understands the speech. In this case, it means a tongue that no one understands but God, a categorization that excludes foreigners from understanding it.
But the counterargument would be that Paul was just talking about no one at Corinth understanding the tongues.
E) Another argument is that in Acts whenever the apostles spoke in tongues, they were speaking in chaotic phonetics, even at Pentecost, and that God gave foreign bystanders the miraculous ability to understand it. But if that is what is meant by speaking in tongues, then why could not Christian believers at Corinth understand tongues, while at least some bystanders at Pentecost who heard the languages were disbelievers?
F) Razare made this argument to say that it's the same thing:
G) Charismatics pray and feel sincerely and emotionally led to perform their tongues. They ask why they could be led in a mistaken spiritual direction after sincere prayer. They don't think God would allow that spiritual misdirection to happen.
Unfortunately, there are major cases of sincere believers being led in opposite directions on teachings and practices even after sincere prayer. Two examples are (1) the mutually opposing positions on infant baptism among Reformed Protestants and (2) the very opposing positions on the experience during communion meals between Lutherans/Catholics on one hand and the Salvation Army/Quakers on the other, the latter group not even observing ritual meals.
H) Paul said in 1 Cor, I speak in tongues more than any of you, not I speak in more tongues than you. So he did not mean I am educated in more languages than you. He was talking about an inspired practice of some kind.
Why other people think that the Corinthians were speaking in national tongues
A) A few Church fathers said that the Corinthians were speaking national languages. However, those Church fathers lived in a later era a few centuries removed. They were not present when the Corinthians were speaking in tongues. St. John Chrysostom wrote that they were speaking national languages in Corinth, but he said that the phenomenon was obscure for him and had ended by his time.
B) Paul spoke in tongues successfully to spread the gospel to foreigners a few times in Acts. Plus there was the case of Pentecost when speaking in tongues meant national languages. Since Paul never specifies in 1 Corinthians whether the Corinthians were speaking national languages, the default understanding of what language he had in mind could be the same experience that we see narrated in Acts, ie. one of speaking real national languages.
C) Paul further connected his tongues to the Corinthians when he said:
I thank my God I speak with tongues more than you all; yet in the church I would rather speak five words with my understanding, that I may teach others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue. (1 Cor 14)
Here he is talking about words that are not in his understanding, but as we know from Acts, Paul's tongues were understood to foreigners who spoke languages that he did not understand. So when Paul said that he speaks in tongues in this passage, he was not saying that he has studied foreign tongues and speaks them naturally. But this does not rule out either that he is speaking in national languages unknown to him.
D) Paul instructs the Corinthians to use an interpreter. For there to be an interpreter, it suggests that there was a real national language to interpret.
But Pentecostals also sometimes invite in interpreters, but that doesn't show that what the Pentecostals are interpreting is a real national language. They can just be interpreting the speaker's thoughts or emotions that are expressed in the chaotic phonetics.
E) Paul says that with no interpreter, speaking in tongues makes one sound like a barbarian. Barbarians speak foreign tongues. However, perhaps he minds that talking in chaotic speech patterns makes one sound like an uncultured barbarian, as opposed to a person from a foreign civilized nation.
F) Speaking in tongues was a gift from the spirit to spread the gospel to other nations. So it doesn't make sense why the early Christians at Corinth would be made by the Spirit to speak in phonetics that are not real foreign languages. However, this tension exists in Paul's own statement on tongues in 1 Cor 14: if tongues are for preaching to foreigners like in Acts 2 and in places where Paul uses tongues with foreigners in Acts, then why does he say that "no one understandeth him" in 1 Cor 14, unless he was talking about two kinds of tongues, the Corinthian one being a special prayer one? Maybe when he wrote about "no one understandeth him", he was just talking about no one at Corinth understanding the foreign tongues?
